Events Ain't Shit

Happiness is neurotransmitters, their presence, concentration and release

We think that every event in your life is significant as all of your happiness and mindstates depend upon the apparent sequence of events in your life. This is true in the short-run however it is evidently clear that almost all major events, good or bad. have little to no impact on your mindset and happiness levels few years down the road. This obviously excludes events that directly lead to some physical brain damage or immediate and direct triggering of psychotic illnesses.

Happiness can be measured with brain activity. Not perfectly but enough clinical correlations have been established to hint at causations. People supplied with serotonin mimicking drugs do end up with a better sense of well being regardless of the events or situations in their life. Thinking of extreme shit an opioid/heroin shot comes to mind that has the ability to significantly alter mood states just by messing and tinkering with the chemical balances in the brain. The brain influences the mind there is little doubt about it. Every individual's current mental state is indicated by the chemicals in the brain. By this standard, the current and immediate mindset should always be independent of past events and situations and should always be judged by the varying levels of mood chemicals in the brain.

Let's imagine the following situation. Two people, on the same day, experience a significant life-changing event. Let's imagine that one of them meets with an accident and looses a limb while the other wins a million-dollar lottery. At the time of the event, the lottery winner's brain is flooded with a cocktail of adrenaline, dopamine, and serotonin elating them to extreme levels. On the other hand, the other person who meets with the accident experiences shock, followed by acute episodes of sadness and depression after the accident. Despite there being the biggest contrasting difference between their states of mind at the time of the event, investigations reveal that there isn't any real effect on their mindsets tested on a non-special day 2 years into the future. 2 years from now, the initial influence of the events on their brain would have completely died down and again the current states would mostly be determined by the events and their general health only a few days prior to investigation. What this means is that 2 people can have vastly different and significant life events which could have no effects on their emotional or mental states a few years down the line.

All events may seem to be significant, important, and influential at the moment but a rigid trust in their permanent long term hampering or elative effects on an individual's mind is incomplete and hence inaccurate thinking. Every day and at any moment, an individual's mental state is influenced and determined by the neurotransmitters at that time. Past events surely may create more or fewer chances of better or worse configurations of personal universes and hence minds, but there is no permanent determinable and predictable effect of an event. Once the initial high of winning the lottery is lost, the brain chemicals inevitably come down to their pre lottery base levels. Despite their new and improved financial statuses, in most lottery cases, winners barely exhibit any long term positive effects or changes in the person's happiness levels. Losing an arm sure causes disability caused distress in life initially. But with time as the person develops acceptance psychologically, neurotransmitters become tolerant to the situation and the new way of life physiologically, the brain recovers and gets back to the pre-accident state and functioning.

The only long term solution for the perpetual gain and achievement of happiness seems to be in training the mind to detach itself from all worldly events. Since no one can predict if an event is supposed to have a positive or negative long term effect, there seems no point in rigidly attributing qualities to present-day events. In the famous tale, the king who loses a finger in battle and later is spared by a tribe of cannibals for being unholy on account of having only 9 fingers might start to celebrate or rejoice the loss of the finger. Since there is no confirmed or reliable way to accurately access the significance or the long term effects of the present moment, the best strategy seems to be in developing a healthy detachment from reality where most events are judged as being neutral.

Buddist monks that train their brains in the art of mindfulness are one of the happiest tested people on the planet. With satisfaction and compassion scores going off the charts. Training the brain in mindfulness, gratitude and a theistic sense of security does seem like the perfect and most appropriate antidotes to the suffering of life. Meditation, praying, compassion, and placeboistic rituals all help in generating a sense of contented detachment from immediate events. While it is factually true that everything happens for a reason, the paradigmatic belief that the reason is good, could help us greatly in dealing with situations and life events.

An understanding of the neurological mechanism of psychological injury and its healing, combined with training in the practice of non-judgmental observation of events could go a long way in helping deal with misery in a practical way.